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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

You're So Vain... You Probably Think This Blog is About You. Don't You? Don't You?

The Phi has always been a cute kid. I mean come on....

PR Dad and I have gotten use to people stopping us and telling us how cute or pretty she is. It happens every time we go out without fail. I even remember one time in Palm Springs while walking down the main street and a dude was sitting at a cafe literally jumped out of his chair and came up to tell us how cute The Phi was. The gays and old folks totally love her so Palm Springs is thee place for her. Anyways it was something that we got use to and we just smiled and thanked them. Not a big deal.

Until Now.

Now The Phi is picking up on this. The other day we were in a department store. Some dude was sitting waiting for his wife to pick a color of lipstick and he smiled and waved at The Phi. She smiled back and he told me I had a beautiful daughter. I said thanks and as we were walking away The Phi looked up at me and said...

"Mom, everyone likes me"

I didn't know how to respond. I said something about being nice and people are nice to you when you are nice and that she looked like a nice kid because was was behaving so well. Or something like that. She is starting to understand the compliments and I am worried that this will give her a big head. Make her vain and value her looks over her character. We have always be conscious to praise The Phi on her intelligence and humor and accomplishments and not on her looks. Am I totally over thinking this? Or will these little compliments from strangers about her looks turn her into a looks obsessed totally conceited teen?

7 comments:

I have had the same issue. I sat Zoe down a gave a talk very similar to yours. I told her that people that base their ideas about people strictly by their looks are shallow. She seemed to understand. I really hope I don't have a problem later on. People tell us all the time (just based on her looks) that we are going to have our hands full when she is a teen. That's scary stuff, I just want her to be smart, caring, and generous.I think all we can do is remind them of their good attributes besides the whole beauty thing.

I have no clue, but it sounds like what you're doing (giving her compliments on things aside from looks) can be a good balance. The value of the compliments from her mom and dad will outweight quick compliments from strangers.

And in the end, aren't the vast majority of teen girls conscious about their looks? I thought it was just part of the growing up process.